Another day, another tenor, another cute young man
branded with the ‘next Fritz Wünderlich’ tag – this one has had
even more ecstatic media attention lavished upon him than the previous
pretenders to that title, perhaps because of the exceptional exposure
he has received at the Edinburgh Festival: one can’t help feeling that
if he had made his Wigmore Hall debut before such excursions, he would
not have arrived here now with such high expectations. Jonas Kaufmann
was the subject of a piece in a national newspaper which caused much
chortling amongst my musical acquaintances, bearing as it did the headline
‘I don’t mind my sexy image…’ – can there be anyone on this planet over
the age of 16 who still believes that an image is anything other than
a construct of a publicist, an agent and a willing artist? – he is exotically
handsome, described to me rather waspishly by another tenor as ‘the
one that looks like a gypsy’ – his smouldering good looks and very confident
platform manner reminding one somewhat of Juan Diego Flórez,
but unfortunately, where the latter is the real thing in his field (that
is, a tenore di grazia of a taste and refinement such as is heard
perhaps once in a generation) Kaufmann, whilst possessing a striking
voice, is hardly in the same league.
His programme was delectable: he has excellent taste
himself, or he is guided by someone who has – one expects ‘Dichterliebe’
in such a recital, but not the Liszt sonnets and certainly not such
a generous helping of Strauss. He began with Schumann’s ‘Kernerlieder’
which I always associate with the baritone voice and which is a test
for any singer, a test for which Kaufmann was unfortunately not ready.
The first two songs sounded coarse and loud, and ‘Frage’ entirely missed
the sense of quiet awe which Matthias Goerne brings to it on his recording
with Eric Schneider: Kaufmann was ably supported by Helmut Deutsch,
but he seemed to be trying to sing this difficult music, with its deceptive
simplicity, in far too rough-and-ready a style.
He seemed more comfortable with ‘Dichterliebe’, but
there were many occasions when I found myself asking questions about
the voice – it sounds as though there is a tremendous reserve of power
behind it, but when that power is needed it is not always forthcoming
in a helpful way; that said, he is at his best in forte and at his least
effective when tenderness and nuance are required. ‘Wenn ich in deine
Augen seh’ was rather choppy, with the crucial ‘So werd’ ich ganz’ marred
by an intrusive ‘uh’ although he did give point to the final line. He
seemed to think that ‘Ein Jüngling liebt ein Mädchen’ needed
helping along with some gestures, but he would have done better to concentrate
his efforts on giving some indication of the meaning of the phrase ‘Dem
bricht das Herz entzwei’.
In such a well loved piece, we all have our favourite
moments, the ones where we anticipate how the singer will take them
– for me, the one word ‘heimlich’ (secretly) in ‘Allnächtlich im
Traume seh’ ich dich’ says a great deal, but Kaufmann again went for
a gesture rather than what I would prefer, which is a delicate sense
of conspiracy in the voice rather than the hand. His finest moment was
certainly the ecstatic closing stanza of the penultimate song, where
the phrase ‘Ach! jenes Land der Wonne’ was given with just the right
sense of transfigured bliss. The final song was less successful, but
Deutsch played the wonderful postlude so winningly that most of us went
off for our interval drinks in a fairly happy state of mind, save for
one or two who decided that Kaufmann was not for them and did not wish
to go back in for the second half.
Those who left did miss something, but it was not the
Liszt settings of Petrarch, which, like the Kerner Lieder, are really
not for every singer. Just as Kaufmann would do well to listen to Goerne
in the Schumann, so he would benefit greatly from a close study of Fischer-Dieskau
or Quasthoff in the Liszt. On this occasion, it was left to Deutsch
to supply with his fluid, supple playing all the tenderness which the
singing lacked: it is not enough to scoop up to those high notes, the
singer must also give attention to the phrasing, and above all he must
not sound constantly under strain, because if he does his singing cannot
display the required dulcet quality which is so much part of a song
like ‘I vidi in terra.’ This was not a happy group for Kaufmann, or
for anyone intimate with these songs, but he deserves credit for programming
them.
The rest of the recital was given over to Strauss,
and Kaufmann here redeemed a great deal, not only for programming them
but for his performance of the first song. It has always surprised me
that more tenors do not sing ‘Heimliche Aufforderung’ – it’s a glorious
song which Kaufmann clearly adores, and although I would have liked
a little more refinement at certain moments, he sang such phrases as
‘O komm, du wunderbare, ersehnte Nacht!’ with such intensity that I
almost understood what the fuss had been about. ‘Ich trage meine Minne’
was less successful: this perfect little gem is another one which sets
traps for the unwary – it’s not enough to sing it with folk-like simplicity,
since special attention must be paid to moments such as ‘die mir beschieden
sind’ which he tended to gloss over. ‘Breit über mein Haupt’ was
beautifully sung but the end came very near to shouting rather than
the desired crescendo.
At encore time, it was again Strauss which showed the
singer at his best: ‘Zueignung’ was sung with blazing commitment and
that sense of how a phrase is shaped which had been missing earlier
on in the recital, although Helmut Deutsch’s playing of the postlude
to ‘Mondnacht’ certainly gave us equal pause for thought as we reflected
upon this recital. Mostly, it inspired me to rush home and listen to
Fischer-Dieskau’s Strauss with renewed respect and love, but that’s
surely no bad thing: Kaufmann is not a major Lieder singer, in fact
I imagine that he would be far better suited to opera, but he presented
an ambitious programme which revealed a voice of some promise and reminded
us of the power of great music to transport us even if the medium is
at times a little lacking in finesse.
Melanie Eskenazi
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